Investigating the interaction between the perception of sound and color and their impact on emotions.

Abstract

Multisensory information plays an important role in the perception of an environment. The current study investigated the interaction between color and sound on emotions. Furthermore, semantically congruent stimuli were tested whether their effects on emotion were stronger than their incongruent counterparts. Participants (N = 60) were recruited through the participant database provided by TNO. Along with Galvanic Skin Response, SAM scales were used to measure emotions before and during a stressful task. The rooms were either colored red or blue with a stressful or relaxing sound playing in the background. The repeated measures MANOVA revealed that participants in the blue room felt more in control when the sound was stressful compared to the relaxing sound. Participants felt more in control being in congruent conditions compared to incongruent conditions, but both findings turned out to be nonsignificant when controlling for age. The limited emotional response to colors and the subjective perception thereof made it difficult to find support for the hypotheses. Future research should therefore focus on sensory stimuli known for universal emotional effects and immune to subjective perception.